Established in 2006, American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) provides critical perspectives and analysis of indigenous peoples in children's and young adult books, the school curriculum, popular culture, and society. Scroll down for links to book reviews, Native media, and more.

Third American Indian Youth Literature Awards announced by American Indian Library Association

Best Picture Book is Thomas King's A Coyote Solstice Tale, illustrated by Gary Clement, published by Groundwood Books, 2009. Louise Erdrich, author of Birchbark House, says that A Coyote Solstice Tale is:

"The perfect book to read in the Birchbark Loft. This is a wonderful coyote sweet and funny book, a gentle anti-Christmas craziness story that resonated with me and will, I think, with every mother and father whose children's visions of sugar plums require them to visit a crowded mall. It made me want to drink hot chocolate and curl up with a good book."

Best Middle School Book is Meet Christopher: An Osage Indian Boy from Oklahoma. Written by Genevieve Simermeyer, with photographs by Katherine Fogden, Meet Christopher is published by the National Museum of the American Indian, in association with Council Oak Books, 2008. It is the fourth book in the "My World: Young Native Americans Today" series, in which each book is written and photographed by Native contributors.

One of my favorite activities outside of school is Osage language class. I go to the language class at the public library one evening a week with my mom, dad, and Geoffrey. The class is special because I’m learning a language that could disappear soon if no one works to keep it going. About 130 years ago, Osage children—like other Native kids—were sent away from their families to live at boarding schools, where they were supposed to speak only English. Over time, a lot of people forgot their language. Most boarding schools for Native children were shut down in the 1930s, but today not many people can speak Osage fluently. In my family, people stopped speaking it when Iko’s [Christopher’s grandmother] grandmother died. Her mom was still a little girl when her grandfather told all of his children that they needed to learn to speak English, since they didn’t have a mother to take care of them anymore.

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AILA's choice for the Best Young Adult Book is Lurline Wailana McGregor's Between the Deep Blue Sea and Me: A Novel, published by Kamehameha Publishing, 2008.

The book is available from Kamehameha Publishing, where you can also read an extensive interview with the author. Joy Harjo, author of The Good Luck Cat and For a Girl Becoming, worked with McGregor on development of the screenplay that evolved into this book. On her blog, Harjo said:

"Though this is a particularly Hawaiian story, the issues, characters, and sensibilities are similar to indigenous people all over the world."

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Winners of the AILA Youth Literature Award receive a cash award and a beaded medallion featuring the AILA awards logo.Winners will receive their award and medallion at the ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. on Monday, June 28th.

18 comments:

Thank you, Debbie, for this posting. RIF will help to spread the word on these winners. I am going to order them for the office library and maybe you can work with me to have one or more of the authors to visit RIF and make a presentation to the staff...I am now trying hard to regularly schedule authors and illustrators for presentations to staff.

Thanks, Debbie. The first two titles fit our collection and I'll be adding them. I'm especially interested in the "My World: Young Native Americans Today" series. The phrase "the *real* American Girls (and Boys!) books" came to mind.

ALA website down at the moment, but I'm sure I didn't see this mentioned in the news about the big ALA awards shindig. Most librarians are tuned in to that Monday morning announcement in the middle of January every year: shouldn't AILA get its award coordinated with the rest of the lit awards at the big MidWinter Machine??Anyway thanks for the news. The tribal library has zero funds. I guess I getter buy these for us myself.Oh oops. Logged in as me, not as the library.Miriam BobkoffLower Elwha Klallam Tribal Library, at least some of the time...

Thanks for posting this! I linked to your post in some of the librarian and book-related groups over at friendfeed.com. They aren't specifically focused on children's and/or ya lit, but it might still help increase exposure.

I bought Between the deep blue sea and me for my High School library. It is a great read and I look forward to sharing it with the students.I want to put some descriptive search terms in, I'm a new librarian and couldn't find it cataloged in any local libraries. Could someone share what subject terms they use with this title?Thank you.

We've finally purchased a copy of "Meet Christopher" on your recommendation...after having flipped through it, I'm reminded of a wonderful series that's in the process of being published up here in Canada. It's called "The Land is our Storybook," and, when complete, will include 10 books and a teacher's guide. Each book is written with a member of the Indigenous community/nation depicted. If you're not already aware of them, you may want to check them out here:

First Peoples listed AICL as one of the Top Five Native Blogs and Podcast to follow. School Library Journal's Elizabeth Burns featured AICL as her Blog of the Day on July 2, 2007, and in 2007, the ALA's Association for Library Service to Children invited Debbie to write a blog post for their site.

American Indian? Or, Native American? There is no agreement among Native peoples. Both are used. It is best to be specific. Example: Instead of "Debbie Reese, a Native American," say "Debbie Reese, a Nambe Pueblo Indian woman."